The Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility
Welcome to the Beginner’s guide to accessibility!
You can use this guide to get familiar with accessibility fundamentals. It can also serve as a springboard for deeper investigation into areas of accessibility that are most relevant to you and your interests and needs.
If you’re new to accessibility, we recommend starting at the beginning and reading the sections in order. However, each section is written to stand on its own, so feel free to go straight to the sections that you’re most interested in.
Table of Contents
What is digital accessibility?
Digital accessibility refers to the practice of building digital content and applications that can be used by people with disabilities. This content can include websites, mobile apps, desktop apps, video games, electronic documents, emails, and more.
Digital accessibility involves many different disciplines and skills, including coding, design, user experience (UX), part coding.
Testing is particularly important. People with disabilities often use different types of Assistive Technology (AT) to navigate websites and applications, so a lot of accessibility work is simply about making sure your interface can be navigated by different kinds of assistive technology. We’ll take a deeper dive into AT in the next section, but common examples include screen readers, screen magnification programs, and keyboards.
Web accessibility means reaching more people
1.6 Billion+
The World Health Organization reports over 16% of the globe’s population has a disability. (Source)
98%
WebAIM reports that nearly all of the top one million web pages have critical accessibility issues. (Source)
$18 Trillion+
The disability community represents a vast global population with immense spending power (Source)
How people with disabilities use the web and mobile apps
The 5 major categories of disability are:
Visual
Example: blindness, low-vision, color blind.
Hearing
Example: deaf and hard of hearing.
Motor
Example: not having the use of certain limbs and paralysis.
Speech
Example: people who are not able to speak or who have a speech impediment.
Cognitive
Example: dyslexia, autism, ADHD.
In many (but not all) cases, people with disabilities use AT to navigate their computers, mobile devices, and their many applications. For example, people with visual disabilities may use a screen reader to navigate their computers and mobile devices. They may or may not use a braille keyboard. If they have low vision, they may use software and devices to increase the size of text and applications on the screen.
People with motor disabilities may not be able to use a mouse and instead navigate via keyboard or a device with keyboard-like inputs. They could use dictation software. People with cognitive disabilities may be able to use a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, but they may encounter barriers with certain user interfaces or design components.
That said, different disabilities pose different challenges to computer and mobile device usage, and there are practically infinite variations and combinations within these “categories.” The combinations and types of AT that people use often come in just as many variations.
Assistive technology
The best way to wrap your head around assistive technologies is to see how they’re used. Here are some great resources:
- How Persons With Disabilities Use the Web – Our Virtual Panel discussion International Persons with Disabilities Day is now available to watch on demand!
- An Introduction to Screen Readers – Steve Sawczyn demonstrates how he uses a screen reader to navigate the web via his PC and mobile device.
- One switch. One head. The world. Christopher Hills’s has produced a whole series of videos about how he uses technology as a person with Cerebral Palsy. Once you’ve finished this video check out Intersection: Where Technology and Disability Meet.
- Assistive Technology in Action – A great series of videos by the W3C about people with disabilities and the assistive technology they use.
Progress over perfection
You may be thinking, “How can I possibly create applications that work for every variety of disability and assistive technology?” Don’t worry! That’s not actually a realistic goal.
Most assistive technology is meant to translate alternative inputs into the kinds of input behaviors your application is designed to respond to; for example, turning eye movement into a mouse click or a specific keyboard shortcut into scrolling to the footer of a page.
The job of developers and designers is to create applications that present as few barriers as possible and that follow the coding conventions of the language the application is written in. (Occasionally, developers may be required to add some extra accessibility attributes to their code, but it’s often better to create applications that avoid such requirements.)
Overlays and widgets: Have you seen those floating icons on some sites which attempt to offer a separate experience for people with disabilities? Learn about what many advocates and people with disabilities think about this in the Overlay Fact Sheet.
Accessibility compliance: Regulations and requirements
The most consistent motivation for digital accessibility projects is compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Please note: As a global company, we focus on a diverse array of digital accessibility standards, regulations, and requirements that will have varying degrees of applicability to your organization, depending on where and how you operate. The details below are meant to provide a basic overview of some of the most common and widely applicable examples. If your organization has specific compliance concerns, we recommend speaking directly to an accessibility expert or special counsel about what accessibility compliance means for your organization.
WCAG
WCAG, a.k.a. the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are the technical guidelines created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for creating accessible web-based content. WCAG serves as the basis of accessibility regulations across the globe including the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia, and Japan. In 2018 these guidelines were updated and dubbed WCAG 2.1. And in 2023 the guidelines were updated again and published as WCAG 2.2. Here’s the least you need to know about WCAG 2.2:
- WCAG encompasses Principles, Guidelines, Success Criteria, and Sufficient and Advisory Techniques.
- WCAG Success Criteria are broken down into different “levels of conformance”: A (basic conformance), AA (intermediate conformance), and AAA (advanced).
- Compliance with WCAG 2.1 A and AA success criteria generally serves as the default definition of “accessible” when it comes to web content.
- The shorthand for the principles underlying WCAG 2.1 is “P.O.U.R.”: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust.
- There are a lot of different ways to meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria. The W3C does provide techniques for meeting these criteria, but they’re only suggestions and won’t necessarily be a good fit for every variation of an accessibility issue.
- Finally, WCAG 2.1 is ultimately about the user’s actual experience. If your user interface technically meets WCAG requirements but is inaccessible in practice, your UI is inaccessible.
- If you don’t have specific accessibility regulations that apply to your organization but want to avoid legal risk, WCAG 2.2 A and AA compliance is a even safer bet.
Section 508
If you work for a US Federal Government Agency (either directly or as a contractor), you may have heard of Section 508. According to the US Access Board…
“Section 508 Standards apply to electronic and information technology procured by the federal government, including computer hardware and software, websites, phone systems, and copiers. They were issued under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act which requires access for both members of the public and federal employees to such technologies when developed, procured, maintained, or used by federal agencies.”
It’s important to note that 508 applies to all Information and Communication Technology (ICT), not just websites and applications. Section 508 also applies to all 3rd Party ICT products, services, and other deliverables purchased by the US Federal Government. If your organization does contract work for Federal Agencies, you may be asked for a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) detailing your product’s compliance with Section 508 Standards.
The Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a US civil rights law prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities “in all aspects of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public.”
Title I applies to Employment, Title II applies to Public Services (State and Local Government), and Title III applies to Public Accommodations and Services Operated by Private Entities.
ADA Title I and Title III do not currently have specific requirements regarding digital accessibility. HOWEVER, courts frequently interpret Title I and Title III as applying to web-based content and services, and more and more website accessibility lawsuits are being filed each year. In 2024, Title II was updated to include specific requirements for digital accessibility and set WCAG 2.1 A/AA as the standard for measuring compliance.
In 2025, more than 3,117 Federal lawsuits were filed against inaccessible websites. According to Title III experts from the law firm Seyfarth Shaw:
“ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal courts in 2025 jumped 8% over 2024.”
So if there are no specific digital accessibility requirements laid out by the ADA in Title I and Title III, how are organizations supposed to know what their digital accessibility requirements are? Based on existing US regulations like ADA Title II, 508 and the ACAA, the answer is WCAG 2.1 AA.
Other regulations
- WCAG 2.2 is here – Learn about what to expect from the new success criteria.
- Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) – applies to airlines operating in the US. Points to WCAG 2.0 AA for digital accessibility requirements.
- 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) – applies to communications devices, products, and services as well as video programming on television and the Internet.
- Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) – applies to all people and all public and private organizations in Ontario. Seeks to have accessibility implemented and enforced by 2025.
- European Accessibility Act (EAA) – a crucial piece of legislation becoming national law in all 27 EU member states, taking effect on June 28th, 2025.
How do you know if you’re accessible?
Accessibility testing is the best way to assess your current status. Here are some basic tests you can conduct:
- Keyboard-only navigation: Try navigating through your website using the tab key. As you hit tab, is it immediately clear where you are on the page? Does a focus indicator appear to show that you’re on the “About Us” section in the top navigation, or in the footer, or on a featured article? If a focus indicator is visible, can you select all the elements of the page a person would want to navigate to? Are you able to navigate away from each element by tabbing? If the answer to any of these questions is no, your website is not accessible.
Pro tip: A focus indicator is a box, highlight, or other visual indicator that appears on a page to show which element of the page is currently in focus. Learn more about accessible focus indicators on our blog.
- Automated accessibility testing: Download an accessibility testing browser plugin (we recommend the free Axe DevTools browser extension for Chrome, Firefox or Edge), and run the tool on your website. Does it return any accessibility issues? If so, your website is not accessible.
- Captions and transcripts: Do you have any kind of video content on your website? Is it captioned? Are transcripts immediately available for audio content? If not, your website is not accessible.
Tests like these are beneficial, but they’re not comprehensive. The more people and teams you have working on different components and applications, the more likely it is that parts of your digital content are accessible and other parts are completely inaccessible.
The best way to fully and accurately assess whether your website and applications are accessible is to get a comprehensive accessibility audit conducted by accessibility experts.
